The Desk

So I'm trying desperately to catch up on my blog and to actually learn how to blog. I'm not so good with all the gadgets and add-ons...my blog is pretty boring except for my projects. I LOVE my projects, they make me happy.

For the longest time (seriously it was 8.5 years), we had the ugliest desk known to man. It was a corner desk, which I hate anyway because of their total disregard for space, but it was also particle board laminated with a wood grain picture on top for the body of the desk and flat black for the tops and shelves. Can you say YUCK??? All the storage for the desk was open and because of my love of projects and the fact that I'm a busy mom and keep other people's children as well, the mess was very visible to everyone that walked into our bedroom. I don't like mess. I like clean! So I scoured the internet and looked in antique stores and searched until I thought I would lose my mind. No one had the perfect desk, or rather an affordable perfect desk. I found great desks for about $900 - $1500, but I just couldn't justify spending the money on that. I wanted a fantastic desk that I could store everything in and have great functionality out of. Finally, one day while I was on Craigslist looking for an entirely different project, I happened upon an ad for a desk. It was ridiculously ugly, but listed as a solid wood desk for $80. I thought, "okay then, I can work with that!" So I called the lady up and set up a time to go look at it. It was in a not so good part of town so I called in my father and his truck to go with me. We went, and the desk was NOT solid wood. It was mostly MDF with some wood, it had been altered, and a wood grain formica had been put on the top. I hummed and hawed and talked it over with my dad for a few minutes. I mean, how practical would this purchase be? But, I just couldn't pass up the storage or the price so I went for it! I got the thing home and sanded the formica top to rough it up a bit for the paint. I used a great primer and sprayed the whole thing. I do not have a great sprayer so I decided after the primer I was going to go with a good old fashioned paint brush and some foam rollers. It went great! I changed out the hardware and gave the desk some nice jewelry with glass pulls and a gleaming custom glass top! The desk, paint, pulls, and top all together cost $257, most of which went to the custom glass top. I'd say that is money well

spent ;)

Well that stinks!

So just as I'm trying wholeheartedly to finish up projects around the house and BLOG about them, our hot water heater decides to bust and ruin all my hard work! So it has been an eventful and interesting summer to say the very least. The Flood was bad. I was at home so I am thankful for that! However, I was very confused when I walked out of my bedroom and stepped into a puddle. I immediately thought the kids had been up to no good...poor kids were innocent this time. I then realized the water was coming from the laundry room and still seemed to be flowing. I checked it out thinking that our super old washing machine had finally cratered. It was innocent too. Finally figured out it was the hot water heater so I went into action and tried my hardest to get the thing to shut off. It didn't work at the source so I grabbed a crescent wrench and ran to the alley. I overcame my intense fear of cockroaches and flicked the lid off the water meter and tried to shut off the valve. That would have worked perfectly if the valve hadn't been buried beneath about an inch of dirt. So i used the wrench and banged around and dug and the hard dirt until I found the valve. By this time the whole house is pretty much under about an inch of water. It all got turned off and needless to say we ended up having to get all new floors. A HUGE pain but it actually ended up being the sunny side of our little catastrophe. I now have the floors I want everywhere, so yay me ;)

Here are just a few pics of my disaster. I will post after pics as I put the house slowly back together!

So we've been in our house for 6 years now and slowly but surely I have gone through and really tried to make it our own. I've ripped out walls and had new cabinetry put in, changed carpet to wood, and vinyl to ceramic or stone. Hopefully what I have now will appeal to a new buyer before too long, but it has certainly made things easier, more functional, and nicer looking for us! I'm just going to share a few pictures of what I have done so far. The first thing I tackled was the kitchen, but I'm now making changes to it again so I'll post pics of that later. The second thing I did was paint the hallway between the kids bedrooms. When I started all of the walls in my house were plain white - I needed color!!!

Base Coat

The paint was great but I still wanted something more. So after taping and painting, and taping and painting, and taping and painting some more I finally got what I wanted! Color, pattern, and LOTS of interest ;)

This was almost at the finish point and you can see that there were many cleanups to be made!

After some clean up but before the final reveal

This is the final reveal. The only thing that isn't finished in the crown moulding...and that's still not done. Maybe one day soon it will all be finished!

Another Try

I'm soooo bad a blogging! I've tried to do things like this in the past and I'm just not with it at all!!! But, here I am trying once more to get into the spirit and remember to blog! I have a ton of things to blog about so get ready for a crazy overflow of backlogs!

Puppy Foster Parents

Brandon and I decided that we were playing puppy foster parents with Lola. Last week we put an ad in the paper for our little Maltese Lola Jayne. She is so precious and cute but my patience is thin enough as it is and adding potty training and remembering to put the puppy away every time I lay a child down for belly time, plus all the projects that I have going around my house I was ready to snap! Brandon likes me sane more than he liked the puppy so we decided it was best to wait on me having a puppy for a while and see if someone else could love her more while she needs it most. So, Saturday 22nd we had some people decide that Lola Jayne was the perfect dog for them! They adored her and absolutely thought her name was appropriate ;) so she will stay Lola and have a new family to love her. I am bittersweet because I loved her too - I just love my sanity more. Eventually I hope to have another little pooch running around. But, hopefully it will be when I have no kids at home during the day!

Meet the Teacher

We had Dylan's "Meet the Teacher" night last Thursday. I, of course had not had time to buy his school supplies yet and so I was behind :( But, it all turned out for the good! Dylan didn't want to leave our house because he had just gotten up from nap and Mum was there. So he was a bit grumpy which had me concerned. However, when we got there he was so excited - even through all the chaos and kids running everywhere! I was really proud of him while meeting his teacher - he made eye contact and introduced himself and then hugged her like she was his new best friend! She had a scavenger hunt page for us to do. All the kids had to find all the special places in the room and their name on their table and their hook for the backpacks and other special places in the room. Dylan found everything all on his own and then thanked the teacher nicely when he was rewarded with a bat pencil. Of course I had to sign up for things too, always ;) He stayed excited and is writing his alphabet as I'm typing and is so happy that he starts school tomorrow. We just pray that he is where he is supposed to be and that he will succeed both in academics and in his social skills. I'm so thrilled for him! I've thought he needed more than I was able to provide for a while now and I'm so thankful that I liked his teacher too! I think this year will be amazing for my little man. I know that I will be nervous for him tomorrow, but I'm trying to remember that I'm the only one that is nervous.

So today Dylan decided that he was going to become a stylist. The first foray into hair cutting started with Jade My Little pony - Pinkie Pie. He cut her mane into a mohawk and then turned the scissors on Jade Reese. He chopped a short layer into her hair just above her chin and went back past her ear. Needless to say, my daughters gorgeous curly long hair now looks like a bad Annie cut. I couldn't do much to save it and we are going to a wedding this weekend. So angry!